


Guardian

by Shadadukal



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadadukal/pseuds/Shadadukal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with a funeral. No wait, that isn't quite right. It begins before that, with a friendship, and a promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icarus_chained](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=icarus_chained).



> About a month ago, Icarus_chained (on Live Journal) gave me ten prompts so I could write ten two-sentence-long fics. Some ended up with four paragraphs but I remained drabble length for nine of them (see Nine Very Short Stories). The last one however grew into this massive (for me) AU. Icarus_chained's fics tend to be part of my head canon when it comes to Nigel & Nikola so I'm referencing some events from several of her fics in this one.
> 
> Thanks for grav_ity for the beta and anuna_81 for the Serbian word!

_It begins with a funeral. No wait, that isn't quite right. It begins before that, with a friendship, and a promise._  
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

When Nigel is laid into the ground, Nikola watches from the woods. James and Helen, dressed head to toe in black, have come to pay their final respects, their hands linked together. James's clothing is too Victorian, he notices absently, whereas Helen has chosen her clothing more carefully, and her dress matches the style of this starting decade. Only her hat doesn't espouse current trends. They stand next to Susan, and have even exchanged a few words with her earlier. Anna squirms in his arms.

"Hush, hold still", he whispers in her hair.

"Why can't I go see? I want to go!" she cries. Thankfully, she isn't very loud and her voice doesn't carry.

"You shouldn't be seen."

"But Uncle Nikola, I'm invisible, so people can't see me. Why did you and Mommy tell me to do that if it's to stay here with you?"

Nikola looks into her eyes, or where they are most likely to be.

"Because there might be other unseen people watching."

He can imagine the way she frowns at that, trying to wrap her eight-year-old brain around his obscure words. He's glad Nigel's had the opportunity to see his daughter turn eight; he passed a week later, and that seems important now. He doesn't think their enemies would attack them right this moment, but it's better not to risk it. And Nigel has said that Helen, and only Helen, should be informed of Anna's existence, but only after his funeral. For this purpose, he has written a letter to be delivered to Helen. Nikola'll post it straight after.

Nikola had known Nigel to be mortal, but he'd been unchanged for so many decades that his rapid decline at the end had not given him enough time to prepare. In large part because he tried to ignore it at first, the early signs, Nigel's hair greying. He had pretended not to notice. He could only imagine how Susan felt, going as she did from a hale and healthy husband who seemed to be in his mid-forties to an elderly man that looked old enough to be her grandfather.

A dark shape moves in the woods, some distance away. Nikola can easily tell that it's Druitt. He lowers Anna to the ground – not wanting Johnny to see him holding empty air – grasping tight onto her hand. "Stay with me," he whispers.

"Is he dangerous, Uncle Nikola?" she murmurs against his hip.

"Yes, he is."

As soon as the service ends, John flashes away. Susan speaks with Helen and James. It lasts several minutes before they go away, leaving Susan alone next to the grave.

"You can put your clothes back on," he says, gesturing towards the bag at his feet.

Once she's clothed and visible again, Anna runs to her mother and he follows at a more sedate pace. Anna plants herself in front of the grave and stares at it, then looks up to her mother.

"When is Daddy coming back?" she asks.

Tears in her eyes, Susan looks at him. They will have to explain to her again what death means. Tears prick at his eyes too.

+++

Anna comes to understand that her father isn't coming back, and cries a lot when she does. During the following years, as Anna grows from a child to a young teenage girl, they move around Louisiana. The abnormal community is strong here, which definitely has its advantages. They sometimes run into enemies, his or perhaps people after invisibility. It makes no difference. He promised Nigel he would look after his daughter and his wife, and he does.

To Susan's amusement, he completely fails to interest Anna in science, although she does try to learn some to please him. She prefers drawing, pinning her works of art all over the walls of each new home they move into.

An evening shortly after Anna turns thirteen, after she's gone to her room to paint, they're washing the dishes after dinner when Susan breaks the silence between them.

"When I first met Nigel and fell in love, I could tell there was another woman that had come before me, a love for another he still carried in his heart. He assured me I was the only woman he loved and I believed him... He didn't lie that day. I just didn't ask the right question."

"Susan..."

"No, let me finish, this is important. I didn't realize it at first, when you showed up on our doorstep in '50, looking like something the cat dragged in. Nigel helped you; a man should always help his friends. But you just never left, making a home on our living room couch. And you stayed there for seventeen years. With various groups of people hunting Nigel, and even though you brought your own enemies to our door as well, having a vampire guardian has been..."

"Useful," Nikola supplies, but Susan shakes her head.

"A comfort. All the more so after I finally managed to conceive and we had Anna. And there was no denying your presence made Nigel very happy. So I said nothing after I saw you two together."

"Nigel loved you, Susan. He..."

"Yes, I know," she interrupts him again. "He was a much more loving husband than most women ever get, a much better man. But he loved you as well. There was something between the two of you, more than common ground and old friendship, just something...Something he didn't have with me... I wasn't sure you would stay, but I shouldn't have doubted you. Nigel wouldn't have been fast friends with a man who breaks his promises. Thank you for staying, for protecting Anna."

There is nothing he can say to that. Instead of spouting out trivialities, he puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. Susan turns towards him.

"I'm dying, Nikola."

"What?"

"I'm sick, the doctors say I only have a few months left to live, if that."

Her calm acceptance of the situation rattles him more than her revelation.

"I want to hear everything the doctors have said."

He also manages to get her test results. He puts everything he has in an envelope addressed to the London Sanctuary, asking for James to confirm the diagnosis, even signing the letter with his initials, in the unlikely event James doesn't remember his hand-writing at first glance. He sends it express, and spends the next few days pacing around the house, until Anna paints a thunderstorm full of rolling dark clouds and shows it to him, saying that this is what he looks like these days. He goes to pace outside instead.

Susan continues to live her life as if nothing has changed, going to work, doing her share of the housework – she chides him when he tries to take on some of her tasks – and taking care of Anna. Finally, deciding enough time has passed, Nikola calls James.

"Yes, I want to talk to Dr. James Watson and don't tell me there's no one there called that... Don't hang up! Just tell James a bloody old friend wants to talk to him. He'll kill you if you don't transfer me."

At long last, he manages to convince the idiot who's answered the phone to put James on.

"James?"

"Nikola..."

"Did you get my message?"

"Yes, I did. Nikola, where are you calling from?"

"James, just tell me before I run out of coins."

"Your friend will be dead before the end of the year. I'm sorry, there's nothing the Sanctuary can do. Nikola, where are you?"

Nikola's anger is so sudden and violent that he breaks the receiver without meaning to, his call to James coming to an abrupt end. He goes to drink, spends far more than he should on large and completely ineffective quantities of alcohol. It's late when he comes back home. There's no light in the house, but he can hear both Susan's and Anna's quiet breathing. He curses himself for leaving them alone for so long. They haven't run into any of their enemies for several months, but they can't afford to grow complacent. He takes a quick shower to wash away the smell of seedy bars. He is sitting on the couch, wearing only black cotton pyjama pants, completely unable to sleep, when light spills from the hallway. He recognizes the footsteps as Susan's.

"I'm sorry," he says when she appears at the living room door. "I'm sorry for the way I've been acting lately."

"You've been an ass, but I understand."

He turns to look at her. She is older now, just over fifty, but she is still a beautiful woman, and more importantly a good, sensible woman, and a loving mother.

"I... I was supposed be a... a bodyguard, doing science experiments in the garden shed so I didn't blow up the house. I wasn't ... Anna..."

He buries his head in his hands, unable to convey what he means. He's trembling, but his eyes remain dry against his palms.

"There is no one better I could leave her with. Nigel would agree with me," Anna murmurs, sitting down beside him and putting a hand on his back, comforting him as he still were a little boy, when in reality he has sixty years on her. It isn't long before her touch on his skin becomes sensual though, an arousing caress between his shoulder blades.

"Susan..." he begins, turning his head towards her. She leans forward and kisses the corner of his mouth; he pulls back.

"I can't, I'm sorry. You're my best friend's wife, I just, I can't."

"No, Nikola, I'm your best friend's widow."

"I don't love you."

"And I don't love you. Nikola, for years now, I've been Anna's mother and I've gone to work. I want something more from the time I have left to live."

He sort of understands what she means. It doesn't feel right that he should do this, but he can't think of a good reason to refuse. There is only one card he can play.

"When I'm...excited..." he says, and cringes at his own awkward words, "I lose control. I don't bite, but I can't hold back the change."

Susan has seen him kill in their defence, long before Nigel even died, but he imagines seeing it during sexual relations would likely be unsettling.

"I was married to the invisible man, you know," she says, amusement in her voice, as if she thinks he's being an idiot.

"He still was human, I'm not." And he shifts, turns towards her, and sits still.

She looks him over carefully, runs a finger on the upper side of one claw, and stares into his red-rimmed dark eyes.

"That doesn't make you a monster," she says.

He shifts back, kisses her, and then, rising from the couch, takes her in his arms, Susan squeaking into the kiss at his action. He keeps on kissing her as he walks to her bedroom because he's not sure he can do this if they keep talking. He makes sure to lock the door so Anna can't accidentally walk in on them.

He settles for gentle and careful because he's not sure he can muster passionate. Susan is fearless in her love-making and he lets her take control because she probably needs it and he doesn't want to be in charge anyway. Kneeling astride him, Susan sets a pace that suits her. It's been a while, but he manages to hold on long enough not to disappoint her. When he changes, she isn't spooked.

Afterwards, they lie next to each other. Nikola isn't sure if he should just go back to the couch, but after a few days of very little sleep and an orgasm, he does feel tired now and sleeping on an actual bed for the first time in almost two decades sounds very appealing. He will move if Susan wants him to leave though.

"I don't know how to tell Anna," she whispers softly.

He holds his breath for a minute – or maybe it lasts only ten seconds – then exhales slowly.

"It should come from you, but I can be there," he says, turning his head towards her. Susan is on her side, looking at him with sadness in her eyes. "There are also probably some legalities we should take care of. Starting with the fact I need to have an identity. The abnormals working for the administration can help speed things up."

"Let's see how everything can be managed before we tell Anna."

He nods, and then just has to ask: "Do you want me to go?"

Susan shakes her head, but turns to face the other way. He can't help but turn his back towards her too.

+++

He adopts the name Nicolas Griffin so he can pretend to be Nigel's brother or cousin. His new passport looks very much like the real thing. For now – but it won't remain that way for long – it is relatively easy to change identities and obtain or alter documents to provide proof of it. With the advice of some abnormals in the business, they soon realize it'll be much easier for Nikola to formally adopt Anna if he marries Susan.

They explain it to Anna, that it's important Nikola adopts her, that having two legal guardians is a good thing. When she instantly wonders why they didn't do this before if it's so important, they have to tell her the truth about her mother's health. She cries and yells and kicks Nikola in the shin, shouting she wants her Mommy and Daddy, and not him. That hurts, but he knows she doesn't fully mean it, at least he hopes so. Then she runs to her room and clangs the door shut. Susan takes a few minutes to calm down herself before she goes to see her. That leaves him cooking dinner, which he doesn't mind at all, as it gives him something else to think about other than the conversation that is going on in Anna's bedroom.

They get married a few days later in the afternoon. Anna has tears in her eyes during most of the ceremony. So does Susan. The three of them go to a restaurant afterwards because Susan is determined to have some kind of celebration. Anna orders only dessert and they don't say a thing. Once they're back home, Anna goes straight to her room. He lingers in the hallway, unsure what he is supposed to do. Susan takes his hand and leads him towards her room.

"You are not spending your wedding night on the couch," she says.

He can hear Anna's breathing just behind her door; no doubt she's trying to listen in. He hurries to put two closed doors between them. He swallows the moans and noises Susan makes with kisses, and _she_ bites _him_ when she comes, whereas he bites his own tongue hard enough to draw blood.

"Better than last time," she says after, and he takes it as a statement of a fact, which he agrees with anyway, rather than a slight on his manhood.

"Better than last time," he confirms.

"How long were you and Nigel...?"

He swallows, doesn't say a thing.

"I think I have a right to know," Susan insists, and he relents.

"Well, we were friends at Oxford. Best friends even. After the experiment, any kind of rules ceased to matter. It was very natural for our relationship to become... physical." _Kisses in the library at the Magnus home. Growing more daring each day. Experimenting with the limits of their new powers._ "Shortly after, I returned to New York. After the turn of the century, Nigel came to bring me back home to England. Being together again... " _Lying in bed together, Nigel teasing him with ghost touches, basking in each other's warmth, sleeping in each other's arms._ "Every time we met again after a separation, there was always some hesitancy as to whether we would resume that aspect of our relationship."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Maybe fear one of us would have decided to follow some of the rules of society again. We were separated during the war. We went back to America together in 1919." _Jerking each other off in a narrow bed, clinging to one another._ "Afterwards, it was somewhat difficult because I had a public part to play, but we were together throughout the 1920s and the 1930s." _Drinking illegal wine and committing illegal acts in a New York hotel room. Nikola sleeping on top of Nigel because he's light enough. Nigel sleeping on top of him because Nikola is strong enough. Nigel in him, him in Nigel. Arousing touches, skin to skin. Love._ "Until the mess of World War II. And then you know when we saw each other again."

"How long before you started again when living with us?"

"Probably longer than you think. Nigel was a smart man. He wasn't going to give me what I wanted until I was right again."

"You frightened me sometimes then. But I trusted Nigel."

He doesn't say he wouldn't have hurt her because it isn't true. And he knows that, while Nigel would have thrown him out had he already had a child, he took risks with his wife.

"Dark years," he says, "but Nigel managed to get my head screwed on right again eventually. Three years after I arrived at your home, and then..." _Kissing Nigel and almost coming, crying as he finally pushed into Nigel again, Nigel calling him a bloody idiot and laughing and holding on and loving._ "How did you even find out anyway?"

"I came back home to put down some groceries before picking up Anna at her friends'. You were out naked on the back porch and, if I didn't know what to look for, I would have thought you insane."

He remembers that day, being sick of hiding, and they had gone out onto the porch. _Nigel sitting invisible on the bench, Nikola kneeling over him. Nigel's loving touches on his back, Nikola's fist closing around both of them, the pressure just right..._

"Memories of Nigel alone get you aroused faster than I can," Susan says, interrupting his trip down memory lane, while she gestures down at his growing erection.

"Don't think I don't find you beautiful."

"But you've never felt for anyone the passion you had for Nigel."

"There's something I'd like to do," he says, because he doesn't want to delve into his feelings for Nigel.

And he slides down her body to kiss and lick her sex, even daring to use electricity. Susan painfully tugs at his hair, moaning his name just before she comes around his tongue, when he runs his fingers around her clit one last time.

He looks up at her after she lets go of his hair.

"Get back here," she pants, and he obliges. She pushes him onto his back and moves to straddle him, like the first time they had sex, something he doesn't mind at all. He moves in synch with her, speaks incoherent encouragements, and makes sure she reaches a third climax before seeking his own release.

This time, they don't turn their back on each other. Susan holds him, hugging him to her, head tucked under his chin.

+++

It's not long before Susan's health starts to seriously deteriorate. One night, after a day where she's felt slightly better, she kisses him and asks him to make her forget. While they've been sharing a bed, they haven't had sex since the night of the wedding. This time he makes love to her. Because while he may not be in love with Susan, he does love her, even if the love he feels for her is not all-consuming, like what he felt for Nigel.

"You're an acquired taste," she tells him after.

"What do you mean?"

"You're hard to get to know, a difficult man to figure out. In fact, for the most part, I still have no idea who you are. But I know what's important. You're a good man where it counts, and you'll keep your promise to Nigel."

Anna spends most of those days, most of those weeks, with her mother, and he fades to the background, puts some plans in motion, gathering information and supplies.

Susan passes away in the afternoon, a few months after she's let him know about her sickness. Anna's been too old for this for years, but he hugs her as she sits on his knees, sobbing, head buried in the crook of his neck. His own tears fall into her hair.

Anna always stays close to him in the days that follow, as if she is afraid he will go away too. They bury her mother, _his wife_ , two days after her death. Anna clutches his hand so hard that it would bother him, were he not part-vampire.

"Would you like to leave?" he asks once they're back at home. "Travel the world?"

"Why?"

"Lots of memories here." Too many, but he doesn't say that.

Anna considers the suggestion, looking around the living room, the kitchen, down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

"Okay, let's go."

"Where to first?"

"I can choose? Umm... another continent?"

"How about Australia?"

"Sounds great."

It takes him a few days to finalize arrangements. Anna keeps on following him everywhere. He's taken to sleeping on the couch again, and he finds her curled up in the armchair one morning. She probably needs the reassurance at the moment, but if the attitude lingers, he'll say something.

+++

Anna does relent after some weeks. They travel the world all throughout her adolescence, spending weeks here, a few months there. They both fall in love with their first stop, Australia. Anna tries surfing and excels at it. While she surfs, he sits on the beach, filling notebooks with ideas and sketches, written all in code. He didn't use to do that, write down this much, but setting up a lab isn't always possible.

"You should do something with all this, Dad," Anna tells him, dropping onto the sand next to him, her sun-bleached hair all tangled and wet. He's not sure what she's talking about, completely focusing on her last word. He's always been "Uncle Nikola" up until now. Hearing her call him Dad makes his heart beat faster, and pleases him and terrifies him all at once.

"You know, send it to someone or something," she continues, gesturing towards the notebook.

"Dad?"

He still doesn't react.

"I just wanted to try it, see how it sounded. I won't do it again if you don't like it," she says, looking down.

"No, it's fine," he replies finally, a finger under her chin to tilt her head up so he can look at her. "You just took me by surprise."

"Daddy will always be Daddy in my mind, but you can be Dad. Besides, if two men could have children together, I'd have been yours anyway."

His shock is such it's as if he's just been punched in the gut.

"You... How... What?!"

"Mom told me," Anna says, digging her toes into the warm sand.

"And you're okay with this?" he says, making a wide gesture with his hand, trying to encompass all of life perhaps.

She picks a Tim Tam from the packet in her bag, takes a bite, chews on it thoughtfully before swallowing, and then looks him straight in the eye.

"Yes, I am."

He wraps an arm around her shoulders, and she leans against him.

"It makes no difference to me that you're not biologically mine. You're perfect. I love you."

She blushes, a proud smile on her lips as she looks up at him.

"So, what are you going to do about this?" she asks again, gesturing to the notebook in his lap, before putting the rest of her biscuit in her mouth.

He feels reluctant at the thought of parting with his ideas, but he supposes James would be able to make sure something good comes of them. But no way is he sending it by post. He'll drop the notebooks at the London Sanctuary whenever they make it to Europe.

These first few years, they stay in the Pacific and South-East Asia region. They push to India, which Anna instantly falls in love with, soaking up the atmosphere and adding a lot of bright pinks, yellows and oranges to her paintings.

Anna is twenty by the time they make it to Europe. Their first stop is London. They infiltrate the Sanctuary together, Anna sure in her skills, to leave Nikola's notes on James's desk, as well as suggestions to improve the security of the house. They make it in and out without being detected. They do stay in London after that for a while, which is stupid, but he's missed it, and Anna has taken an instant liking to it.

Their tour of Europe isn't as big as it could have been. Damned iron curtain. But he won't risk it, even to show her Prague.

Anna jokes that he should buy a vineyard when they're in France, and he just rolls his eyes at her.

While they have always the option of stealing whatever they need, Anna decides to sell some of her paintings to make a legal living.

After they've been in Europe for just under five years, during which they sneaked into the London Sanctuary several times, Nikola asks her where she'd like to go next.

She opts for seeing Australia again. They move into a small apartment building near Coogee Beach. Soon after, Anna starts seeing a little punk who lives one floor above. He's irritated when Anna introduces them to each other and she decides to tell Nikola is her brother. Once the punk – Mike Thayer – has left, Nikola complains about it.

"Why didn't you tell him I'm your father?"

"Dad, you look less than 10 years older than me now."

"Fifteen. I could have had you at fifteen and be looking a young forty."

Anna's eyebrows disappear under her fringe.

"You were thirty when you stopped aging and it shows. Anyway, it's done now. What do you think of him?"

Nikola grimaces and that's all the answer she needs. She gives him the cold shoulder for a few days after that. He sets up a lab in his bedroom, and moves his blankets to the couch, wanting to actually run some experiments to keep his mind on something else. So he misses Anna's relationship with Thayer growing more serious. Some time later – weeks, months, he's lost track – she announces they're about to get married. He disapproves, tells her so. There's a lot of shouting, and it ends when Anna bangs the door on her way out yelling "you're not my father anyway!"

This hurts him so much he forgets to breathe for a moment, then he uncontrollably vamps out in rage, tears in his eyes, because it's not fair. He claws at his own arms because even in this red haze, he realizes he doesn't want to leave traces of his tantrum behind by shattering the room. The pain helps calm him. This is what letting one's child make bad choices is all about. Nothing that can be done, they have to learn for themselves, he muses. That was a lot easier to do when it came to unfortunate fashion decisions. Letting Anna marry a man who gives him bad vibes is a lot harder. The only solution he can think of is killing the fucker, but that somehow doesn't seem like a good idea.

So Anna Griffin marries Mike Thayer and becomes Anna Thayer. When she moves back with him six months later, Nikola says nothing. Anna is three months pregnant and wants to go back home, back home to Louisiana.

They visit both Nigel and Susan's graves, Anna telling them they're going to be grandparents. Nikola can't wrap his head around that one himself, even though he's more than a hundred and twenty.

Because there is no way on Earth he'll handle birthing a child _by himself_ , he gets back in touch with the abnormal community.

Anna takes to decorating their new home, painting directly on the walls. Nikola wants to have a lab again, but doesn't want to risk having one in the house. He finds a perfect place, a one-hour drive away. It feels so wonderful, doing science again in good conditions, sending shivers of pleasure down his spine. To not simply be writing his thoughts down in a notebook, but to actually be puttering away in a well-equipped lab.

+++

"Are you sure you don't want to find out? We could sneak into a clinic..."

"Dad," Anna interrupts, "I want the surprise of finding out at the birth."

"But forewarned is forearmed!"

"Forearmed!? I'm having a baby, not the Antichrist. What difference does it make if it's a girl or a boy?" Anna wonders, hand curled protectively around her slightly protruding stomach.

Nikola isn't sure why it matters to him so much, can't quite put his finger on it. But Anna has her way. She is in week thirty-one when she announces him she wants to name the baby Nigel if it's a boy.

His heart aches in his chest at that, wanting to scream that there can be only one Nigel Griffin, but a part of him understands why Anna would want to name her son in memory of her father. So he nods simply in agreement and asks her what she wants to do if it's a girl. "Think about that one?" she asks.

A few weeks later, while Anna is in labour, she surprises him with a question. The two women helping with the birth say nothing, and will say nothing, a very special kind of abnormals who cannot reveal the secrets of others. It's taken him a long time to find them from rumours, but so worth it.

"Did you ever think of marrying?"

"I was married."

"Out of love, Dad. Not just so you could adopt me."

He's been going by the name Nicolas Griffin for more than a decade now, and the symbolism of it hasn't escaped him. Marrying Nigel...His stomach does odd flip flops at the thought, his heart fluttering. He hadn't thought about it. Two men couldn't get married. He hadn't thought about it. But if it had been possible, he would have let Nigel slip a ring on his finger in a heartbeat, he realises. _In sickness or in health._ His strength and Nigel's frailty, his madness after World War II and Nigel's steady personality. _For richer or poorer_ , that had never been a problem. Even when they had both fallen into hard times, well, money was easily made, with both their talents. They had made vows in a way, bound by shared blood and blood spilled. And Nikola has made a vow, to take care of his family. He understands now the scope of his promise. He is immortal, and Nigel's family can be too.

"Yes," he finally replies to Anna. "I think deep down I did." And he squeezes her hand.

Anna, Nigel's daughter, Susan's, his, _theirs_ , gives birth to a daughter herself. Anna's eyes are full of wonder as they look down at the tiny baby in her arms.

"What's her name, Dad?"

He's completely forgotten about that. Or rather he's thought about it and couldn't decide on anything.

"Clara," he answers.

Anna turns tired eyes towards him.

"Because things are very clear to me now," he says in reply to her silent query.

Anna frowns, but the creases on her forehead disappear as she looks down at her daughter.

"Clara. Clara Griffin. It has a nice ring to it."

Yes, Clara Griffin, because there is no other name she could have.

+++

Clara is three the first time she fades. That they notice anyway. Nikola is delighted that she can do it too and Anna wavers between proud and worried. They move around because it's safer this way. But always they stay within relatively close distance of Nikola's lab.

When Clara is four going on five, they travel to London, to drop more science on James's lap. Anna chooses to stay with Clara. Infiltrating the Sanctuary on his own is no trouble. Being able to control electricity allows him to confuse security systems to move about undetected.

He skulks in the shadows, gliding between the pools of light filtering through the windows. James's office is empty this time of night. He thinks about lingering, but it's safer not to. Someone turns a corner entering the hallway he's in and he plasters himself against the wall, half-hidden by some drapery. He holds his breath so that he can't be heard in the night's silence.

It's Helen, Helen as he's never seen her before. Heavily pregnant, probably thirty-six weeks along. He stifles a gasp, biting his tongue. So long ago, he helped build a device... Helen and James tried to hide what it was for from him but he needed to know the specifics to construct the most efficient design. So Helen has finally decided to carry John Druitt's child to term, to give life to a scion of two of the Five. Shortly after Nigel has had a granddaughter. James is old now, and Nikola doesn't think Watson ever considered having a child. Nikola himself can't. He's a hybrid, part-human, part-vampire. And he knows what this means. And while his very existence suggests vampires and humans can interbreed, perhaps how he came to be has made it impossible for him to father a child; he knows, he's checked. It is ironic then that out of them all, he is the one who has spent the most time being a parent.

After Helen enters a room, he counts down from a hundred and twenty before hurrying to leave. He's spent far too much time here.

Nikola does pay more attention to the network after that and learns that Helen has given birth to a daughter. Ashley. The name comes as a surprise.

+++

His little Clara grows up. At six, she begs for a camera – which she obtains – because she is going to be a photographer. She turns down his offer of learning science, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Like mother, like daughter," he grumbles with a rueful smile. Anna grins.

He still wants to share something with Clara though, and thinks it should be something useful. Therefore he stocks up on martial art books, reads them and puts his strong agile vampire body through the moves. Clara takes to it with all the enthusiasm of a six-year-old. And her mother tutors her through exercises with her invisibility. So Clara grows into an agile fighter, dangerous even with her bare feet and hands when she's invisible.

The new century brings new Cabal attacks the likes of which they haven't known in a while. Nikola unleashes his vampire side on their attackers. He's done it first for Nigel; it's fitting he does it for their family, his powers a shield for their protection.

After a particularly violent assault that almost costs Clara her life, Nikola decides he should remove anything of significance from his lab and pass it on to James. The increased security measures makes travelling a lot more difficult that it used to be but he has good contacts.

Clara is delighted to see England again, to refresh the few memories she has of the short time they spent there when she was a little girl. Nikola almost considers walking in and asking James for sanctuary, at least for Anna and Clara. But he knows Anna will not go and Clara will not stay without her mother.

Both Griffin women have infiltrated the Sanctuary to make the drop while he waits outside. Suddenly he feels it, a presence, and turns around swiftly, changing as he does so.

His claws meet a knife's blade and thankfully don't come out damaged. Nikola glares into John's eyes.

"One would think _you_ 'd be welcomed inside," John says slowly, dangerously.

"Maybe I don't want to go inside. Don't you have better things to do than try to knife me in the back? I've never hunted you," Nikola says, retracting his claws as a peace offering

"True, you haven't." And the blade disappears.

"A bit dangerous hanging around here. James would surely try to shoot you."

John seems unsettled, madness warring with lucidity in his eyes and there are moments when Nikola thinks he can almost glimpse the man John once was, the man Helen fell in love with, on the scarred face inches from his.

"Look, Johnny, if you ever need help, you could come find me," he says on impulse.

He can compromise his lab. Clara and Anna don't know where it is and he doesn't intend to work on anything important there again.

John looks at him strangely for a moment, and his face settles on the appearance of his friend from Oxford.

"And where might I find you?"

He gives him the address, stressing he isn't always there but stops by regularly. He knows John will check it out, teleport to the closest location he knows to go get a visual of the place Nikola's just trusted him with.

+++

Nikola's felt as if his world had ended several times before. When his brother died. When he lost his mother.

Nigel... even now more than fifty years later the emptiness in his heart is such that he can barely comprehend it. He'd known it was coming, known as he watched Nigel rapidly turn into an old man in the last couple of years of his life once the Source Blood just couldn't hold back the inevitable anymore. Nigel's absence is an unending ache in his chest, a constant torment.

Losing Anna... he hadn't thought that it would happen so soon. That it would be so sudden. So mundane. That someone who carried the gift of the Source Blood should be taken away because of a hit and run doesn't make any sense to him. He thinks sometimes he will just stop breathing because of the pain. He doesn't know how to be there for Clara, even though he's lost both his parents himself, too consumed by the agony of losing his child.

In her grief, Clara takes to shoplifting, stealing money from tills, even as her control over her power is wavering, her emotions all over the place.

Perhaps they should leave Louisiana, go see the world the way he took Anna away when Susan died.

Even a new attack from the Cabal doesn't make Clara want to leave. She wants to stay close to her mother's grave. But they retreat further away from towns, living in a house in the middle of freaking nowhere, not too far away from Nikola's lab. Clara takes up her training again, demanding he spars with her, even though he isn't sure about anything anymore, other than he feels he's failed to keep his promise to Nigel.

The pain remains a gaping chasm in his heart, which he learns to live with. Time goes on; the world hasn't stopped spinning because Anna is dead.

+++

One day, retreating to his lab, he finds John there, lying on the floor, body wracked by spasms. He's unconscious. Nikola runs tests and does what he can with what he has on hands, which isn't much. John's heart stops at some point and Nikola gives him an electrical shock himself as he has no defibrillator on hand.

After a few touch-and-go hours, John finally stabilizes after Nikola discovers the best way to fight the spasms was to apply electricity to him, which shouldn't make sense, but John's body feels oddly charged. Nikola wonders if he's just never paid enough attention to the changes caused to allow John to teleport; for all he knows, that could be normal. Or Helen really did a number on him. He's pretty sure Helen's had a hand in whatever has happened to John.

John regains consciousness in the evening. Nikola hands him a glass of water, which John rapidly gulps down.

"I feel..."

"Probably not so good..." Nikola interrupts. "Sorry, I had to electrocute you quite a lot."

"No, this isn't..."

John looks a bit lost, as if he's trying to look both into himself and in the distance at the same time.

"Appeased, I feel appeased."

"What I didn't was exactly electroshock therapy."

"But maybe the effects are the same."

"I don't have much food to offer you," he says, handing John a packet of cookies, which John eyes disdainfully before deciding he's too hungry to refuse them.

John looks around. "That's not where you live," he says.

"No, it isn't. If you feel up to teleporting, you'd best go to one of your hideouts."

John nods, just before disappearing in a smoky flash of red light, taking the cookies with him.

+++

They move back to Baton Rouge after that, in another apartment of the complex they lived in when Anna died. At least nobody should look for them there as this is an unexpected move. They mustn't draw attention to themselves so Clara stops stealing. But Nikola keeps track of events in the abnormal world.

One day, around the time alarming reports start coming in from the Yukon and Alaska, Clara comes rushing into the flat.

"Dida," she cries, "I've just talked to two guys outside. They were looking for Mom."

Her description tells him one of them is Johnny.

"I've directed them to Whispering Pines," Clara says.

There is only one good reason why anyone would look for Anna Griffin, and outside the Cabal, only one person knows she ever existed. Helen must have sent Johnny to pick her up. Because she's going after the Source Blood. John has probably stopped at his lab too, seeking him.

"Grab your bag, we're leaving," he says, going to his own room to pick his.

When he comes back into the hallway, Clara has her own ready bag in hand, confusion written all over her face.

"Should I fade?" she asks.

"Unnecessary, but we should hurry to Whispering Pines or we'll miss our ride."

At the cemetery, Nikola can see John and another man walking among the tombstones, clearly looking for Anna's. Clara at his side, Nikola goes straight for the right marker. John notices him and, without a word, strides to intercept Nikola's path, finally meeting over Anna's tomb. Nikola looks down.

"Anna Griffin, 1954-2006," he reads aloud. "Beloved mother and daughter." Then he looks up at Johnny again.

Nikola's not entirely certain how much John knew or figured out about his relationship with Nigel. But Druitt doesn't look entirely surprised to find him here, his eyes straying to Clara.

"Anna's daughter, I presume."

"Yeah, I am," Clara says, her hand tightening over the strap of her backpack.

John reaches back, grabbing the other man, and teleports away.

"What the..." Clara begins, but John flashes again, his hands reaching out to grab both Nikola and his granddaughter.

He finds himself in a richly decorated room, which he has no time to detail before Helen steps in front of him.

It's the first good look at her he's had in more than sixty years, because catching a glimpse of her in a darkened London hallway hardly counts. She hasn't aged a day.

"Hello, Helen."

"Nikola, what..." she glances at John in confusion. James is watching him with eyes that see too much and Nikola can almost see the cogs turning, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place in his friend's mind. The young man looks completely flabbergasted.

"Helen, James, John, this is Clara Griffin, Nigel's granddaughter," he says, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Hi," Clara says with a brave, defiant smile on her lips.

"Welcome to the Sanctuary," Helen replies, a radiant smile on her face. She turns towards him, her smile becoming more guarded. "Welcome back, Nikola." He has a story to tell, he expects, but now may not be the right moment. And there are things he'll keep to himself.

+++

Nigel is seating on a chair at the kitchen table, watching an invisible Anna playing in the summer rain in the back garden, water clinging to her skin, making her look like a scintillating fairy as rays of sunshine pierce through the dark clouds. Nigel's hair is mostly white now, and thinning out, his face increasingly marked by the passage of time. The Source Blood has done a lot, for many decades, but time is catching up now

He turns back sharply towards Nikola.

"Nikola, will you look after my family when I'm gone?"

"You're not..."

"Nikola."

Nikola lets his gaze be lost in Nigel's own pale blue eyes. He knows. _He knows, he knows, he knows._ Thinking about it isn't something he wants to do. Nigel drags him into confronting the knowledge with his unwavering stare.

"I will," Nikola whispers, "I promise." Then he shuts his eyes tightly against the tears that are rising in them.

When he opens them again, Nigel is looking back out. Anna is now visible, squatting in the mud with her back towards them, tearing clumps of grass from the ground, delighted by how easy the soaked soil makes the act.

Nikola moves on the bench, moves closer to Nigel's chair. His friend looks back at him. After a brief glance back at Anna, to see she's still not paying them any attention, Nikola leans forward, his lips touching Nigel's carefully.

"I'm not made of bloody glass, you bastard," the Englishman scolds him, before kissing him again, a hungry kiss that lights Nikola's every nerve ending on fire, even though it's far too short for his liking. Nigel breaks the kiss and turns towards the yard again. Anna, Nikola had forgotten where Nigel hadn't. And just in time because Anna swivels to look at them.

"Daddy! Uncle Nikola! Look what I found!" she says, a worm dangling from her fingers, the poor unfortunate creature curling in protest.

Nigel briefly glances back towards him, his smile an echo of Nikola's, love in his eyes, for his child, and as well for Nikola.


End file.
